The present invention relates to a new and improved method and apparatus for inserting threads and similar items into a winding device including at least two traversing devices arranged adjacently and associated bobbin tubes placed onto a bobbin chuck.
In its more particular aspects the method of the present development comprises the steps of taking over each thread, which comes from first thread guides above the winding device, by a manual or automatic thread suction device, placing the thread thereby onto a thread guide edge above and onto individual second thread guiding means below a traversing device and guiding the thread outside the traversing sweep zone. The threads are brought, using the lower second threads guides, in such a manner from the starting position at the exterior end of the bobbin chuck into a zone in front of a catching means of the corresponding bobbin tube. Subsequently, for simultaneous takeover of all threads, the threads are simultaneously guided into the catching means and then are wound into a bobbin package.
In its more particular aspects the apparatus of the present development comprises thread catching means associated with each bobbin tube, a winding device equipped with a thread guide edge above the traversing device, a a thread guide for each thread, which thread guide can be pivoted towards the bobbin tubes, and pivoting means, which pivot the thread guides jointly towards the bobbin tubes.
Side-by-side and double-stacked arrangements of winding devices, on the one hand, and multiple thread winding, on the other hand, as well as the requirement of simultaneous and disturbance-free transfer of all threads to all bobbin tubes in order to achieve uniform bobbin package weights require a replacement of the manual transfer of individual threads.
In a method and in an apparatus as known, for example, by German Patent Publication No. 2,627,643 and the cognate U.S. Pat. No. 4,136,834 granted Jan. 30, 1979, the threads supplied by a thread guiding device or by a supply device are taken over using a thread suction device. Subsequently the threads are guided on a thread guide rod on the side of an end face thereof in front of the winding device as a bundle, but mutually separated, using guide notches. Subsequently the threads are simultaneously moved through a guide slot in the winding device and placed into a position in front of the bobbin tubes at distances which correspond to those of the series arranged bobbin tubes. During this movement the threads are mutually separated using thread eyelets, which are movable along the support axis of the bobbin tubes, and which take over the threads.
Subsequently a pivoting beam supporting the thread eyelets is pivoted towards, or under, respectively, the bobbin tubes for the simultaneous insertion of the threads into the catching slots of the bobbin tubes.
Simultaneously with the movement of the thread eyelets the threads are lifted off the guide notches of the threaded guide rod in such a manner that they can move freely along the thread guide rod into the position corresponding to the thread tension.
The movement of the thread eyelets is effected by shiftable discs, which support the thread eyelets and which are supported on a rotatable threaded spindle. One of the discs is provided with inside threading and is moved as a nut (called nut-disc in the following) by the rotating threaded spindle. The other discs are slideably arranged on the spindle and are mutually connected via carrier rods.
The disadvantages of this apparatus are seen in that a possible inaccurate position of the discs, or of the threads respectively, in front of the catching slot is to be corrected by an additional movement parallel to the bobbin chuck axis, in order to ensure that each thread actually is caught by the catching slot. The possible inaccuracy is due, on one hand, to the inaccurate positioning of the nut-disc as the motor-driven spindle slows down to a stop and, on the other hand, to the possibility that the friction between the carrier rod and the disc exceeds the friction between the spindle and the disc.
Due to this circumstance also the disadvantageous step of the method is included that the threads are to be moved to beyond the positions of the catching threads in axial direction and jointly are to be moved back again, in order to ensure that the threads are caught by the catching slots.